Christians, Couch-Surfing, and Cronyism

Over 8 million people live in New York City. It is the most densely populated city in the US, with over 27,000 people per square mile. With an exceedingly high demand for limited living space in the city, it is no surprise that the cost of living in New York City is astronomical.

There has also been a record number of tourists traveling to New York City. From strolling through Central Park to catching the views from the top of the Empire State Building, the city had 52 million visitors last year. Trips to New York City also feature the high prices of food, travel, and tourist activities.

There is a new way for adventurers to cut costs on their trips while helping struggling city residents in New York City and beyond earn some quick cash: Airbnb.com. The innovative website’s future is in question, though, and not because of normal market competition. What’s more, the livelihood of struggling city residents and towns depending on tourism could be significantly impacted depending on how the struggle over Airbnb.com turns out. But why?

What’s the Story?

Airbnb.com is a website that provides travelers with a database of residents living in dozens of large cities across the world. A person, couple, or family living in a city offers to host travelers, who can choose a place to crash for as low as $10. This saves them quite a bit of money when compared to the price of a hotel room. Airbnb is now “a $2.5 billion company used by an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people a night.”

Airbnb is a prime example of people providing creative, innovative solutions to problems through the free market. It has been an excellent way for visitors to cut costs on their trips by saving money on a place to stay. Similarly, many young residents of the city have been able to afford the high rent by supplementing their income with Airbnb guests.

However, not everyone sees Airbnb this way, and maybe for good reason. Tech blog Techcrunch warned Airbnb users of one guest breaking into the host resident’s locked closet and stealing her birth certificate, social security card, and valuable jewelry. The guest trashed the apartment, wore the host’s clothes, and bought gifts on the host’s MasterCard.

With stories like this in mind, many powerful people, namely city officials and representatives of the hotel industry, are strongly opposed to Airbnb. They say it is a dangerous company that causes catastrophes like the one described above.

Winners & Losers

Is that the only reason these people are opposed to Airbnb? A few sources do not think so, reporting that city officials likely want to “maximize lucrative hotel taxes” and the hospitality industry is “fearful of competition.” This fear is for good reason: the Boston Globe reported earlier this month that for “every 1 percent increase in the number of Airbnb bookings, there is a .05 percent decrease in hotel revenue.”

Whether for the sake of the homeowner’s safety or for fewer cuts in profits, city officials and hotel representatives are pushing for regulation that will discontinue Airbnb’s growing stronghold on the market.

If regulation passes, city officials will be mandating winners and losers instead of allowing tourists and residents to make their own educated decisions.

The winners of this regulation will likely be:

Hotel companies, given that they will not have to compete for tourist demand.

City officials who will receive higher taxes from the hotel industry.

The losers in this situation:

Residents of the city seeking a little extra cash by opening up their apartments to travelers. Some may no longer be able to afford their rent or pay other bills.

Adventurers looking for a cheaper place to stay will no longer have the option.

Travelers seeking a hotel room will be hurt. Prices for hotel rooms will increase because alternatives like Airbnb.com will not exist, the demand for hotel rooms will increase, and the supply of places to stay will decrease.

The regulation will cause fewer travelers. This will hurt cities that thrive on tourism revenue.

The Bottom Line

Some ramifications of cronyism are annoyances instead of life-changing devastations. Nevertheless, these stories are important in depicting how broad and deep cronyism runs. Any case of cronyism, large or small, results in the same negative impacts, as Anne Bradley detailed earlier:

Corruption and injustice are tolerated.

Our ability to pursue our vocations to the best of our ability is impeded.

Poor stewardship results, as scarce resources go to the most well-connected instead of the people who might use them to their highest-valued use.

In the case of Airbnb, affordable travel and the ability to make ends meet in a big city are being affected by people who want to make extra money by calling in favors rather than using innovation and creativity to improve their products and services.

Kathryn Feliciano

Kathryn Feliciano is the ministry coordinator at Restoration Church in Washington, DC, where she leads the women’s and children’s ministries and handles various administrative responsibilities. She previously served as the manager of academic initiatives for the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics. Kathryn is the author of Love Your Neighbor: Restoring Dignity, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty. She earned her master of arts in economics at George Washington University and has a bachelor of arts in economics from Christopher Newport University.